60 Days For Child Rape

[BraveDave]

I can't believe I read this.
Burlington, Vermont -- January 4, 2005

There was outrage Wednesday when a Vermont judge handed out a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl many,many times over a four-year span starting when she was seven.

The judge said he no longer believes in punishment and is more concerned about rehabilitation.

Prosecutors argued that confessed child-rapist Mark Hulett, 34, of Williston deserved at least eight years behind bars for repeatedly raping a littler girl countless times starting when she was seven.
www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=4319605&nav=4QcT

[SmokingJacket]

1. Oy vey.

That's less than Martha Stewart's sentence.

[Benhurst]

4. Yeah, but Martha was a real threat to our society.

:argh:

[snooper2]

2. that is fucked up`

This is the shit that pisses me off.... people get 20 years for an ounce of cocaine, and this bastard gets 60 days. Somebody should find out who he is and beat his ass for additional punishment when he gets out. Yes, I am advocating violence...

[LostinVA]

10. Forget coke, they get it for POT

[Pavulon]

12. DWI

You can do 60 days for threatning a police officer or a multiple offence dwi, with no injuries.

This is a fucking joke and this person should be removed from the bench.

[Child_Of_Isis]

3. Why do pedophiles get off so easily?

Is it because judges secretly think little children are sexy and dream of "doing" one themselves? I wonder if this freak of a judge has any daughters? :mad: :mad: :mad:

[LostinVA]

7. Especially when the majority of medical opinions show

That an extremely, minute, tiny percentage of pedophiles can even begin to control their behavior, let alone this guy. Serial rapists of any gender/age are pretty much gonna be like this forever. He should get life in prison, no parole. Period. One of my exes was raped by her father over many years, and she was never, ever able to recover from it.

[Pavulon]

5. A person

convicted by dna of this act should be subject to the needle. Or life with no parole in a maximum sucurity prison.

With this sentence I would bet a dollar she was black, poor, or both.

[rocktivity]

6. How can a long-term rapist be considered low risk?

The sex abuse started when the girl was seven and ended when she was ten. Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of eight to twenty years in prison...

...(U)nder Department of Corrections classification, Hulett is considered a low-risk for re-offense so he does not qualify for in-prison treatment. So the judge sentenced him to just 60 days in prison and then Hulett must complete sex treatment when he gets out or face a possible life sentence.

He raped the same child for three years, and he's considered low-risk? What do you have to do to be considered HIGH-risk--eat the kids, too?

:crazy:
rocknation

[patcox2]

13. Funny thing about details; knowing them is necessary.

There are varieties of pedophiles. Some are predators, they will seek out and abduct children who are unknown to them. They are rare. Others are much more "situational." They take advantage of a situation they find themselves in. These kind are much less likely to re-offend so long as they are not put in the same situation. This guy probably falls into this category.

So many assumptions, so many myths, about this subject.

[Pavulon]

14. Umm

The guy raped a kid. No matter what his prospects for reoffending he deserved punishment for what he did.

you get 60 days for not paying traffic tickets.

If people can not count on the judicial system for justice they will act on their own.

[Exiled in America]

15. A three year period is a lot of "situations"

Unless you mean simply that if the guy is never put in a situation where he is around a 7-10 year old girl ever again in his lifetime then everything will be ok.

Either way, a 60 day sentence for three years of rape and abuse is beyond the pale.

[rocktivity]

17. A "situational" predator punished so lightly

is not going to get the message he did anything wrong. I fear he'll either think nothing of taking "advantage" of the next "situation" that presents itself--or he'll create a new "situation" on his own.

:headbang:
rocknation

[MountainLaurel]

18. Family member?

The law tends to treat intra-family crimes much less harshly. (Goes back to those biblical principles of children and wives being the property of spouses.)

[Pavulon]

8. No Parent

Who killed that man would be convicted by a jury. It is hard to say but I am not sure that if that was my kid that person would survive to serve their sentence.

[MissMillie]

9. So if his victim was older....

would the judge still be thinking about "rehabilitation" instead of justice?

This is pathetic.

Sure, the guy needs help, but the girl needs justice. That's part of her therapy.

[LostinVA]

11. No, then he probably would have gotten 30 days

Because the woman would have been asking for it in some way.

[Pavulon]

16. Will this be LBN when it is picked up as national news?

Why is this tread now gone? Just curious.

[happyslug]

19. Two Points.

First the Judge sentence INCLUDED Rehabilitation for the Defendant and if the perpetrator refuses to under go sex offender treatment the perpetrator would be sentence up to and including life Imprisonment. The rationale being that the state has determined the type of crime he did he had a low re-offend rate and therefore not eligible for treatment while in Prison. Thus the only treatment he can get would be out of Jail and given the low re-offend rate the perpetrator has a low chance of committing this crime again.

The second issue is why is this a low re-offend offense? Given that the State said he had a low chance of doing the crime again, this must be like 90% of pedophile crime, within the family i.e. it was his daughter or maybe step-daughter he was raping. If the Defendant is forbidden to be around children he does have a low chance of committing this crime again. His crime is the type Defendants don't do except with a child he is living with (and thus most children are protected by Children and Youth Orders forbidding him to live with children).

This brings us to the classic problem of pedophilia, making sure the victim is punished less then the perpetrator. In such inner-family cases if you jail the father, you are also generally jailing the main income earner for the family. You thus force the child to lose her home and move, losing friends. She will have to do without the clothes his income could pay for. Given the lost of Income she might even become homeless. and miss meals do to lost of income.

On the other hand if the perpetrator is sentenced to a long prison term, he has three hot meals and a bed in a heated housing unit. The perpetrator child support obligation will continue while the perpetrator is in jail, but his child will NOT be able to get any till he is out of prison (About the time she entered Collage if not Graduate from Collage). Thus the Victim will START to get the Child Support she when she can support herself, not when she needs it which is RIGHT NOW.

Yes, it sounds good to execute someone like the perpetrator, but what to do about the child? The State has no obligation to provide for the child except to force her father to pay support. If he is in Jail he can NOT pay. If he is dead he will never pay. The state will NOT even give her the support she is entitled to in exchange for a claim against the Perpetrator (Except for the amount she can get if she ends up on welfare). Thus by sentencing him to Jail, who is being punished more, the Perpetrator or the Child? (Assuming of course that her Father is the perpetrator which by the way the Article is written I am 99% sure of).

For you people who want to execute the father, how would you make sure the victim is punished less then the Perpetrator in such situations? Dead he has no worries about paying Child support, finding work, finding a place to live, feeding himself etc. Problem she must face even as a Teenager living with her mother.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. I see the dilemma, and suggest a compromise on the sentence.

Sixty days, served on weekends. That will keep him going back to jail, repeatedly, for well over half a year. That should drum it in that this is punishment. At the same time he undergoes intensive therapy, which is the only cure for pedophiles -- without therapy there is a better than 90% chance of recidivism; with effective therapy there is a 90% chance of rehabilitation. And, of course, the final caveat that if he bails on the therapy or there is any further incident, he goes back for the extended sentence.

Pedophilia is a crime, which should be punished, but it is even more a psychological disorder which must be cured. Obviously, the judge was opting for the cure, rather than ineffive punishment.

[rocktivity]

22. Even sixty days served on weekends would make more sense

At least that way the punishment and treatment would be going hand in hand. That's what I feel is missing here.

:headbang:
rocknation

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. Too late to edit: last line "ineffive" should read "ineffective".

[rocktivity]

27. Nothing in the story that suggests that the victim and perp are related

And since this rape took place repeatedly over a four-year period, I don't think it qualifies as "low re-offend"--you're asking me to believe that he hasn't developed a taste for it after all that time, situational or not?

:headbang:
rocknation

[happyslug]

28. I have PRACTICED Children and Youth, have you?

Now I did NOT practice the Criminal part of CYS, just the Civil side (i.e. are the Children endangered and how to minimize that danger without getting into jailing anyone). Most of my experience was with neglect and bad parenting as opposed to sexual abuse, but I did get involved with sexual abuse cases. When it comes to children being abused over a period of time like this one, it was always a family member. I had NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE. On the other hand if it was a one time abuse, that could be a family member or an outsider, but that is NOT the case here (and even in such one time cases it tended to be male family members). Now the Catholic Priest cases are slightly different but they tend to be 12-15 years old (with some victims as young as age 10 but those were rare, you had almost NONE below the age of 10 in those cases). Thus when you have a victim of the age of this Child, it is almost always a Family member.

[TheWraith]

20. You're all missing the most important sentence.

"Hulett must complete sex treatment when he gets out or face a possible life sentence."

In other words, if they don't cure him, he's boxed up for life. That adds a little something to the tenor of the sentence.

In any event, the treatment will probably never come into play. This man is unlikely to survive 60 days. Besides the way that pedophiles are usually treated in prison, the fact that this guy only got 60 days jail time dramatically increases the chance that he'll be murdered before his sentence is up. If not by the prisoners, then by the guards, or both.

[LostinVA]

23. Going through does not mean he'll be "cured"

(esp. since many professionals say they can't be cured -- only some behavior can be modified). It just means he went through treatment. I;d rather see his ass in prison for 50 years.

[rocktivity]

26. Sixty days versus a maximum of life

That scale of justice is WAY too lopsided. I'm certainly not saying that this man should denied any chance at freedom--not at this point, at least. But if treatment is so more important than punishment to this judge, why make him wait sixty days for his treatment to start?

:headbang:
rocknation

[Reformed_republican]

25. This is a G*d Damn Outrage

60 days in Jail for something as horrendous as child rape?? Sorry but This Judge needs to be taken off the bench.

[merwin]

29. kick

[nickshepDEM]

30. VT: Judge Sentences Serial Rapist of Child to a Mere 60 Days Jail Time

From The Common Voice:

A Vermont judge sentenced a man who repeatedly raped a 6-year old girl for four years to a jail term of 60 days, shocking the entire city of Burlington.

Mark Hulett, who admitted to repeatedly sexually abused a child over a four-year period, got a slap on the wrist in a Vermont courtroom this week and will be free to walk the streets in as few as 60 days, according to the Burlington Free Press.

He sexually assaulted the girl for years, beginning when she was only 6 until she was 10, according to the prosecutor. The prosecution wanted at least an eight year sentence, and says he could have received life in prison.

However, Corrections Department officials said they were unable to provide psychiatric or psychological treatment to Hulett in jail. Judge Edward Cashman then decided to set the jail term at a minimum of 60 days.

Judge Cashman defended his ruling by saying that without treatment, a long jail term would only harden Hulett and make him more dangerous when he is released. He seemed to feel that decision would keep society safer from this offender's sexual deviancy in the long run.

Speechless...

[DIKB]

31. 4 years

of abusing a child ? How does the judge think prison would "harden" him further than that ? "oh he might get out and rape children for 12 years" ?

If that was truly his concern, why not just minimum security prison ?

[bluestateguy]

32. I have a question about this case

If someone had decided to just get a gun and blow this rapist's away would the judge be equally lenient with them?

Somehow I think that, instead, the judge would deliver a long lecture about "not taking the law into your own hands" and then send them to jail for a long time.

[DianeK]

33. I think the point is being missed by some..

if not missed at least ignored. I am grandmother to two beautiful little girls ages 4 and 8. If anyone did something this horrific to them I would rip them apart with my bare hands. I do not want my justice system behaving like an enraged grandmother or with all the emotion that implies. I think Judge Cashman took the broad view that this man is going to be back out on our streets one way or another and since the state had classified him as a 'low level' he would not be eligible for treatment in prison. For the good of society at large...since he will be out like it or not..it is best that he have the treatment that the prison environment would withhold from him. A courageous and humane judgment! I applaud this judge and very proud to have this man on the bench is this state.